Work Text:
“You seem to be… quite fearless.”
Yasha looks up and sees Caleb staring at the ground, shifting from foot to foot. She slows her work on the whetstone and thinks about what he just said, trying to suss out some meaning from it. Caleb starts conversations very rarely but when he does, she’s found he often struggles to get to the point.
“I’m afraid of some things,” Yasha says after some thought. “But fear is rarely the right thing to follow.”
Caleb smiles awkwardly at his boot and stuffs his hands into his pockets. Yasha has learned that the more cornered Caleb feels, the less likely he is to look at someone’s face. She’s met struck children who acted similarly, and sometimes she wonders. “Fear is what saves us from many bad decisions, though, ja?”
Yasha shrugs. “I suppose.” She looks down at her sword, then sets her work down entirely and stands up. Caleb follows her as she wanders a little further from the party. “I think you have to look at it.”
“Look,” Caleb echoes uncertainly.
“Yes. At the fear.”
In her peripheral vision, Caleb is looking at her hesitantly. Yasha replays her words and tries again.
“You have to … think about why you’re scared. If you’re scared of something that’s likely to happen, or something worth risking for the reward.” That sounds clear to her. “You know. Is it worth it.”
He nods and leans against one of the less charred trees. The campfire light doesn’t reach him very well from here, but Yasha can tell he’s opening his mouth a few times, about to speak, before starting again. Then, “I am beginning to think that, unable to weigh the pros and cons, I am stuck doing nothing.”
“So, maybe a set of eyes?”
“Stimmt. Yes. I don’t-” He gesticulates strangely. “I am confused because, it is, say, a very… it is a very tall mountain to climb, but the mountain is also, it is also very… that is a bad analogy. Wait.”
Yasha waits for a while, then tries to help: “The mountain is a person?”
Caleb looks up with wide eyes. “You know?”
“Every time you’re confused, it’s about people.”
The man has a moment of stillness, then flushes. “I suppose that is true.”
“Instead of the whole thing, what are you afraid will happen?”
“That he will laugh at me,” Caleb says, with an immediacy she did not expect. It is as if that fear is so present in his mind it was nearly on his tongue before he beckoned it there. “That. Definitely that.”
Yasha nods. She thinks of Nott’s strange jokes that make foes bend over double in laughter, but this can’t be about things that are jokes on purpose. Caleb’s afraid of that outcome. “But you want to be taken seriously.”
“Yes, and if possible, you know, to be told ‘no’ without any sort of, you know, expressions of great disgust or shock that I would ask, it’s very-” He stops as leaves crunch underfoot. They both turn as Mollymauk walks over, bending slightly at the waist like a person inching into a room they’re not sure they’re welcome in. He’s carrying a stick.
“Mallow root bites,” he singsongs.
Oh! Yasha can see the little fluffy white-and-grey chunks on his stick now, slightly charred from the campfire. “Thank you,” she says, “but I said I don’t like sticky food.”
“I remember!” Mollymauk says with a jokingly wounded tone. “Jester’s over there with chipmunk cheeks she’s eating them so fast, I wanted to make sure Caleb got one before they were gone.”
Caleb doesn’t move or say anything.
“Caaaleb?” Mollymauk waves the stick gently in front of his face. “You said earlier you didn’t have these in Zemni?”
“No, we d-” Caleb clears his throat. “Mallow root does not grow there.”
Mollymauk is nodding as he pulls the first of two mallow bites from the stick, smiling with fangs as it pops off and he can offer it to Caleb. “Very sticky, very sweet, very warm right now.”
“Ah, danke schoen, I, yes. Okay.” Caleb wipes his hand on his trousers before taking it delicately with two fingers, peering at the strange consistency, squishing it down so it will fit in his mouth. Yasha feels like she’s back at the circus in the comedy tent - Caleb’s eyes go wide and his cheeks are puffed out, and as he starts to chew his cheeks go very red and he looks over to Molly, nodding that it’s good, swallowing with a large gulp. Molly’s smiling back to him like this is exactly what he hoped for, shoulders rising up and coming in as he chuckles.
“I told you you’d like it! And, here, I’ve had these before and Jester’s a madwoman on a mission. Shh. I was never here.” Molly winks conspiratorially as he pulls the second mallow bite off the stick and presses it into Caleb’s hand. Before Caleb can react, Molly does a joking curtsy to them both and disappears back through the trees to the light of the fire.
Yasha looks at Caleb, who is still holding the mallow bite. Caleb says nothing. To her right, she can hear Fjord welcoming Molly back and telling him they’ve run out of snacks.
“Your cheeks are still very red,” Yasha observes.
“There was some trick,” Caleb says flatly. “The food was hot.”
“It was on the stick to put it over the fire. That’s why the outside was a little crunchy.”
“Ah.” Caleb is looking back at his feet again.
Yasha thinks about Caleb, and then about Mollymauk, and then about what Caleb is afraid of.
“I think you should ask him,” she says finally.
Caleb’s face falls a little, crumples maybe, and his tone lowers. “He is beautiful, and charming. I am neither of those things. It’s like a sewer rat gazing at a-”
“You’re not a rat,” Yasha interjects curtly. Caleb flinches, and Yasha reminds herself that she is large and a little intimidating at times without meaning to be. She tries again. “He’s not a mountain. You wanted to talk to me for my advice, that’s the best I have. I don’t think you should be afraid.”
Yasha’s a little frustrated that she can’t put her thoughts to words better - it’s never been her strong suit - but even if she could, she’s not sure what she would say about Mollymauk, or what she knows about him, or how tacitly giving her blessing is something he should take seriously because of how much Mollymauk means to her. So often, she wishes she could figure out how to come off gentler.
She turns and walks back to the fire. Nott moves over on one of the logs to make room for her, and Yasha grunts a thanks and settles down. Now that the sun has set a little further, someone has moved her sword and whestone closer to the fire so she wouldn’t have to rummage around in the dark for them. This is a good group, she thinks.
When she begins to rise back out of her thoughts, Beau is poofing her cheeks out as an imitation of how Jester was eating. Yasha smiles a little.